Tracing Tattoos
Tattooing, both permanent and temporary, emerged as a topic in a few recent Pulitzer Center stories. Student fellow Yasmin Bendaas traced the tattoos for her reporting project in Algeria, where the origins of the marks are not clear. Photo by Yasmin Bendaas. Algeria, 2012. Some believe the tattoos tell a story, while others believe they are drawn as a symbol of beauty.
Grantee Anna Badkhen saw similar tattoos in Afghanistan as she built her story “What Afghan Women Want.”
Makai, a prominent figure in Anna’s story who is pictured here, has tattoos on her face and arms. Photo by Anna Badkhen. Afghanistan, 2012. ”When she frowns, which she does often,” writes Badkhen in the story, “the tattoos on her forehead disappear inside a deep vertical crease.”
Badkhen’s feet were hennaed by her friends in Afghanistan. From her story on women in Afghanistan: ”A pewter bowl comes out, a small packet of powdered Lawsonia inermis. Someone brings a teapot with warm black tea, to dissolve the pigment. The women laugh at my feet: Why are they so wide, deformed? It’s from walking far away from home, I tell them. It’s my mark of Cain.”
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